Afghanistan call for sanctions against Pakistan

WASHINGTON: Afghanistanâ€™s National Security Adviser Rangin Dadfar Spanta has urged the United States to sanction Pakistan and refuse visas to Pakistani generals, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

In an interview to the Post, the Afghan official claimed that the central issue in the war against terrorists was their ability to take refuge in Pakistan and not the rampant corruption in Afghanistan.

Demanding sanctions against Pakistan, Mr Spanta said â€œPakistani generals and others that we know definitely are involved in supporting terrorist activitiesâ€ should be denied US visas.

â€œIt is my firm belief that we cannot win if we continue business as usual,â€ he said. â€œWeâ€™ve lost the reality. Weâ€™ve lost the focus.â€

Mr Spanta said the â€œcentral issue is international jihadisâ€ who take refuge in Pakistan and enjoy support and training from Pakistani military and intelligence agencies.

â€œWe will fight corruption,â€ he said. â€œBut to put this problem and challenge at the top of all the others in Afghanistan, thatâ€™s a joke. A bad joke. Itâ€™s avoiding responsibility.â€

Mr Spanta said the United States needed to redirect its drone war to target Afghan Taliban commanders living in Pakistan.

Another senior Afghan official told the Post that President Hamid Karzai also had grown increasingly frustrated with US policy towards Pakistan. â€œHe accuses Pakistan of interfering in Afghanistan, but then the West calls Pakistan an important strategic partner. He thinks Pakistan is training forces to send to Afghanistan to kill our soldiers,â€ the official said.

â€œIt really irritates him.â€

On Tuesday, the US State Department rejected Mr Spantaâ€™s earlier suggestion that Americaâ€™s support for Pakistan was a strategic mistake and that Washington should reconsider its relationship with Islamabad.

â€œPakistan is a strategic country of direct importance and impact to the United States,â€ spokesman P.J. Crowley said. â€œOne canâ€™t look at this through the lens of a zero-sum calculation.â€

It was in the US interest to work with both Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said. â€œThese are not mutually exclusive, and likewise, itâ€™ll be important for Afghanistan and Pakistan to have an effective relationship going forward.â€

Karzai has gone crazy i think. One day he is in bed with the Pakistanis and next day he is barking at them. Just recently he fired his close aid under pressure from Kiyani. Is there something called chain of command in Astan or not? Is Karzai really in control over things?

The reality is that the Afghans (including Taliban) will never accept an overbearing Pakistan. Lets not forget that despite repeated requests from GoP to the Taliban to sign and finalise the Durran line, they refused.

So because of Pakistani arm twisting Karzai might have comprimised as a tactical step, but strategically being the only country that voted against the recognition of Pakistan in the UN, they will always have precarious relationship espicially if Pakistan is not willing to go an extra step being the stronger partner between the two. Spanta's part of the stick of Karzai's carrot and stick policy to Pakistan.

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has strongly criticised the US planned troop pullout starting next July, saying the announcement has given "the enemy a morale boost".

Karzai said the war on terror cannot be won as long as insurgents' sanctuaries exist, citing the situation in neighbouring Pakistan.

He also criticised the death of civilians during military operations, saying the US announcement of a drawdown date has given courage to his country's enemies, referring to the Taliban and its allies.

In a statement on Thursday, Karzai's office said he told the US delegation that significant progress had been made in rebuilding the country after decades of war.

Karzai said the campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda had faltered because of ongoing civilian casualties during Nato military operations and a lack of focus on "destroying the terrorists' refuge" across the border.

US 'mistake'

The Afghan government maintains that the US should be doing more on other fronts, including pressuring neighbouring Pakistan to shut down so-called insurgent sanctuaries.

Karzai's comments during a meeting with visiting US legislators come at a time when the US administration is ratcheting up pressure on the Afghan leader to do more to stamp out corruption.

Retired US Army General Jack Keane told Al Jazeera that the US decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan was a mistake, and that Karzai's views were widely held in the region.

"Just the policy itself has done damage in the region because it has clearly has encouraged our adversaries and put scepticism in the minds of our friends," he said.

Keane said in reality the move has made it tougher for the US "even if that policy is [conditional] and even if there was very little withdrawal in July".

Bob Inglis, one of the four US congressmen who met Karzai, said the Afghan president focused mainly on private contractors and the role of Afghan forces in the war on terror.

Karzai has ordered all Afghan and international security contractors to cease operations by the end of the year, saying they have abused Afghan civil rights and undermined the authority of the state.

US role

Inglis told the Associated Press that Karzai emphasised that Afghan forces should take the lead when entering villages to clear out the Taliban, accompanied by US soldiers playing a supporting role.

"I was glad he said that because it indicated a level of ownership and commitment to Afghans taking charge of the task," Inglis said.

But added, "I think it's an open question as to whether the Afghan security forces [are] at that level as of yet".

Following the recent release of classified US military documents by Wikileaks, the whistleblower website, Afghan officials have become more outspoken in urging the US to put more pressure on Pakistan to shut down terror sanctuaries.

The Pakistanis point to military operations against the Pakistani Taliban but say their forces are overstretched, especially after the recent floods forced the military to take a major role in relief operations.

Rangin Dadfar Spanta, Karzai's national security adviser and former Afghan foreign minister, in a commentary published on Monday in The Washington Post said Pakistan "continues to provide sanctuary and support" to the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks.

"The international community is present in Afghanistan to dismantle these international terrorist networks," he wrote.

"Yet the focus on this fundamental task has progressively eroded and has been compounded by another strategic failure â€“ the mistaken embrace of 'strategic partners' who have, in fact, been nurturing terrorism."